tag:samrijver.svbtle.com,2014:/feedSam Rijver2014-01-21T14:43:33-08:00Sam Rijverhttps://samrijver.svbtle.comSvbtle.comtag:samrijver.svbtle.com,2014:Post/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants2014-01-21T14:43:33-08:002014-01-21T14:43:33-08:00Standing on the shoulders of giants<p><u>Is Android missing prolific developers and writers? I am.</u></p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants" title="Standing on the shoulders of giants">Wikipedia</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) is a Western metaphor with a contemporary interpretation meaning “one who discovers by building on previous discoveries”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Apple has a vibrant and vocal community. For developers (and fans) there’re quite a few digital establishments where one could go to clench the thirst for news, discussion and, <u>most importantly</u>, knowledge. Famous Apple bloggers are playing not only a big part in providing news and commentary, their link-style posts also point (aspiring) fans and developers towards the places where other writers and developers share their knowledge. Knowledge doesn’t have to be code, most of the time it’s about philosophy and design choices<sup>1</sup> . </p>
<p>I’ve been following the smartphone and tablet market for quite a few years now. My own money so far has mostly been spend on Apple products. Due to my involvement with <a href="http://tabletsmagazine.nl" title="Tablets Magazine">Tablets Magazine</a> I’ve used pretty much every Android tablet to come to the Dutch market. I’ve been reading massive amounts of reviews and following all kinds of news. The most important Apple/iOS news and developments I get from places like <a href="http://daringfireball.net/">John Gruber’s Daring Fireball</a>, <a href="http://www.loopinsight.com/">Jim Dalrymple’s The Loop</a> and <a href="http://www.macstories.net/">Frederico Viticci’s Macstories</a> . My RSS reader is full of all kinds of interesting blogs that I’ve found while following links on those websites. I’ve also found a great number of interesting and vocal developers to follow on Twitter. <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/19/the-information-diet-clay-johnson/">My information diet</a> as an interested follower of <u>both</u> markets is very much skewed towards stuff that’s written by people that could be consider on the Apple side of the ‘war’. </p>
<p>I would like to balance things a bit, and have been wanting to do so for quite some time. But where I have sites like the three I mentioned just now to point me to blogs written by people like <a href="http://bitsplitting.org">Daniel Jalkut</a> <a href="http://marco.org">Marco Arment</a>, <a href="http://mattgemmell.com/">Matt Gemmell</a>, <a href="http://brettterpstra.com/">Brett Terpstra</a> and many (many!) others I just can’t find the right place(s) to point me to similary interesting Google/Android bloggers. Can someone please <a href="http://twitter.com/samrijver" title="Sam Rijver on Twitter">tell me</a> where I can find them?</p>
<p>I’m sorely missing them in my daily consumption, and if I am I image others are too. Aspiring Android developers that have similar difficulties finding the type of knowledge the aforementioned sites provide are in a real disadvantage. I’m convinced apps evolve more quickly and to a higher level on iOS in part because of the commentary the vocal<sup>2</sup> Apple community provides. Not only because Apple users <a href="http://techland.time.com/2013/04/16/ios-vs-android/">spend more money</a> on apps. </p>
<hr>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p><sup>1:</sup> I’m intentionally leaving out links to places where actual development problems are shared and solved. There’re plenty but I <u>think</u> there’re also widely available for Android.</p>
<p><sup>2:</sup> I only linked a few sites in this post. I didn’t even throw in any podcast links. The same discrepancy exists though.</p>
tag:samrijver.svbtle.com,2014:Post/im-not-even-telling-my-friends-everything2014-01-20T11:05:37-08:002014-01-20T11:05:37-08:00I'm not even telling my friends everything!<p>This is yet another post related to the recent Nest acquisition by Google. I’m sorry. In my <a href="http://samrijver.svbtle.com/scared-of-using-useful-products" title="Scared of using useful products">previous post</a> I wrote about my fear of Google buying up companies that are providing useful products with practical purposes. Like the iHealth products I’m using to measure things about my health. Information I can choose to provide to my doctor, or keep to myself.</p>
<p>My previous post got linked on <a href="http://loopinsight.com" title="The Loop">The Loop</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/jdalrymple" title="Jim Dalrymple on Twitter">Jim Dalrymple</a> did put his finger on a sore spot; People, myself included, don’t seem to trust Google. And that’s bound to bite them in the ass. </p>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/reneritchie" title="Rene Ritchie on Twitter">Rene Ritchie</a> wrote a great piece on the predatory nature of large companies (including Google) on <a href="http://www.imore.com/anticipation-google-worse-google-itself" title="Why we fear Google">iMore</a> that I would recommend reading. <a href="http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/01/20/why-we-fear-google/">Like Jim</a> I agree with pretty much everything he says. Except this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I value my privacy. I’m deeply concerned about who collects my data and how they use it. But I’m no more concerned about Google owning Nest than I am Nest existing in the first place. If I don’t want a data collector in my home, its not coming in regardless of who’s name is on the box. And if I do want one, I want the best one possible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Too which Jim <a href="http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/01/20/why-we-fear-google/">replied</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem that I have is that Nest sold a product—we bought that product, used it and we’re satisfied with that transaction. With Google, the transaction is Google mining my data looking for information so they can show me the best advertisement.</p>
<p>With Google, I am the product.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a valid concern that I share. But it’s not the whole reason I’m disagreeing with Rene Ritchie here. Like Rene, I’m deeply concerned about who collects my data and how it’s used. Unlike him I <u>do</u> buy data collectors based on the name on the box. The reason for me not wanting it to be Google is because of that they already know a metric crap-ton about me. Too a point where I’m fairly creeped out by it.</p>
<p>Even if I didn’t use Gmail, I send emails to people who do. Even if I didn’t use Google Analytics to track visits on my website, websites I visit do. Even if I refuse to put my phone number and address in my Google (Plus) profile, friends that have my number and address use Android. And so on. Combined with the stuff I actually do provide (sometimes unintentionally or by lack of a good alternative) myself it’s getting too much for me. </p>
<p>My friend who is an accountant knows a bit more about my financials than my friend who is a physician, but he knows a bit more about my health. My friends that are single know a bit more about how I handle myself in a pub and how I handle break ups. My married friends know I’m great with kids. My friends from college know some stuff I can’t even mention here (well I just don’t want too). I’m not intentionally keeping all this information about myself from them, it’s just the way things go. I would be creeped out if they all got together and compiled a big database of all the things they know about me. With Google I’m fearing just that, and because of their insane hunger for information and the financial power to buy up pretty much every single useful and helpful technology company I wrote that <a href="http://samrijver.svbtle.com/scared-of-using-useful-products" title="Scared of using useful products">piece</a> this weekend.</p>
<p>I don’t want any commercial entity to know everything about me. I would like to keep some data siloed. I’m not even telling my friends everything.</p>
tag:samrijver.svbtle.com,2014:Post/scared-of-using-useful-products2014-01-18T09:55:02-08:002014-01-18T09:55:02-08:00Scared of using useful products<p>The recent <a href="http://www.wired.com/business/2014/01/google-nest-buy/">Nest acquisition</a> by Google caused quite a few waves on the internet. The interesting thing to me is that a lot of the talk is quite negative towards Google, especially people who refuse to forget Google is an <a href="http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html">advertsing company</a> seem worried about the implications of this acquisition. The fact that people invited Nest into their homes and now have Google is something to think about…</p>
<p>I’ve found the Nest products to be very interesting from the start, and from the reports and reviews I’ve read they’re actually quite useful. Before the news broke about Google acquiring Nest I didn’t consider it even once that the Californian ad giant would be even remotely interested in getting their hand on Nest. The first place my mind went after I read the news on Twitter was what the average CPC for “energy” was<sup>1</sup> . The data Google could get from Nest should be useful in targeting adds around that keyword. In the <a href="https://nest.com/blog/2014/01/13/nest-google-and-you/">FAQ</a> Nest quickly posted they stated the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?</strong></p>
<p>Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact they take privacy seriously doesn’t say anything about the possibility of the privacy policy changing in the future, as <a href="http://www.marco.org/2014/01/14/nest-privacy">Marco Arment already pointed out</a>. It’s also quite possible this whole acquisition isn’t about the data that the internet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors (and the sensors in them) could provide Google but about diversifying their business. Ben Thompson on <a href="http://stratechery.com/2014/googles-new-business-model/">stratēchery</a> wrote the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Certainly Google has already done a lot of work in this area, from self-driving cars to Glass to any number of internal projects. But, especially in the consumer market, technology is not nearly enough. With Tony Fadell and his team, Google is getting some of the best product people on earth. Just as importantly – because product is not enough either – they are also getting an entire consumer operation, including customer support, channel expertise, retail partnerships, and all the other pieces that are critical to making a consumer device company successful.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can’t image the Nest operation to be large enough to merit the 3.2 billion dollar price, but I also have problems with putting that price on an acqui-hire. Whatever may turn out to be the case the problem I have with this acquisition is the feeling that I can’t shake. The feeling that some useful products I’m using (or want to be using) might get acquired by a company that essentially still is an advertising company<sup>2</sup> .</p>
<p>I’m using quite a few <a href="http://ihealthlabs.com">iHealth</a> products to measure a few things regarding my health. I have measurements of my blood pressure, blood-oxigen levels, weight, activity and sleep patterns and more. I do this because it’s useful information I can use to monitor my own health. More importantly I can (choose to) provide this information to my physician during my yearly check-up. I have yearly check-ups due to heart disease running in the family and with the iHealth products I can provide a great amount of data points for about 80% of the tests they run on such a check. It’s great. It’s useful. It’s also scaring the crap out of me that Google might go out and buy the company for an insane amount of money. I just can’t shake the feeling that if that happens I would feel worried about the implications of Google getting their hands on that kind of data. They’ve <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2011/06/update-on-google-health-and-google.html">tried</a><br>
before in this area. And trying <a href="http://gigaom.com/2014/01/17/one-diabetics-take-on-googles-smart-contact-lenses/">again</a> now. I know for a fact that the average CPC on the Dutch equivalent of Health Care insurance is really high, I image it’s the same for large parts of the world. The Nest acquisition got me thinking about this, and left me with an uneasy feeling. </p>
<p>Now that Google is buying companies that sell useful technology <u>and</u> do this while having a sound business model<sup>3</sup> , where will they stop? And how long will it take before their ad income (growth) <a href="http://www.asymco.com/2014/01/03/on-the-future-of-the-internet-and-everything/">slows down</a> to a point for Google to become desperate enough to start using all that valuable data they’ve collected in the meantime? </p>
<hr>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p><sup>1:</sup> <a href="https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanne">Turns out</a> the average CPC is $4,33 with max CPC around $29.</p>
<p><sup>2:</sup> Even if they’re in the process of diversifying their model I won’t view them any differently until their actually profit out of these new venues reach a substantial percentage of the total.</p>
<p><sup>3:</sup> Consumer pays for the product, the consumer receives the product. Company profits. Nest wasn’t a dying company, Motorola was.</p>